The gaiasense website is launched

This is what I gave a hint on some time ago and the news can now be shared: The website of NEUROPUBLIC's gaiasense smart farming system is now publicly available!

We started with the Greek version a couple of days before GAIA EPICHEREIN's 4th Congress (keep in mind that our customers are Greek) and the English one followed some days later. The English version is mostly aimed to our partners abroad, so that our work is communicated in the best possible way to them - and I should be the one to blame for most parts of the translation from Greek to English :-) 

There is a lot of useful information about the concept of gaiasense and how it appeals to different types of potential users, news items related to gaiasense etc. However, most part of the content focuses on the four dimensions of gaiasense, as shown in the figure above. At the same time, we are working on updating and enriching the content on a regular basis.

They say that a picture equals a thousand words, so I would skip more (boring) descriptions for the time being and invite you to visit the gaiasense website at http://www.gaiasense.gr/en/

Talking about open data during the 4th Panhellenic Congress for the Development of Greek Agriculture

GAIA EPICHEIREIN held its 4th Panhellenic Congress for the Development of Greek Agriculture (brief description in English here) at Thessaloniki, Greece between 9 and 10 of November 2017. This year, the Congress was themed "Innovation & Knowledge in the primary sector: Releasing the dynamic of rural areas".

The aim of the Congress was to highlight the importance of innovation and knowledge not only for improving agricultural entrepreneurship and competitiveness of the Greek agricultural sector - and at the same time, but also in addressing effectively EU challenges like food security and the production of safe food products, the protection of the environment, mitigating climate change etc.

On Thursday, November 9th, in the context of the Congress, I participated in a Workshop titled "Digitization in the food supply chain". There, I had the opportunity to talk about the recent advances of data collection, analysis and processing in the agrifood sector. My presentation was aimed mostly at those not familiar with the concept of open data in agriculture and the importance of data in modern agricultural systems like smart farming. I provided the background, info on the types and sources of open data and presented the use case of NEUROPUBLIC, as one of the organizations making use of both open and not open data for building data-powered services that serve different needs of the agrifood sector (ranging from smart farming advisory services to CAP support and agricultural insurance ones).

I even had the opportunity to briefly mention GODAN as the main initiative working towards the facilitation of publication and use of open data in the fields of agriculture and nutrition and the entity to facilitate the networking of various open data stakeholders.

H χρήση ανοικτών δεδομένων στην γεωργία from Vassilis Protonotarios

What I really found interesting was the fact that speakers before me referred to the importance and role of data in different aspects of the agrifood chain without highlighting the role of the availability and accessibility of data as open data - this allowed me to make references to the previous presentations and explain that without open data, almost none of these would have been possible.

All in all, it was another positive experience and yet another opportunity for me to talk about open data - focusing on real applications and impact on agriculture and food production.

[Publication] Encyclopaedia of olive

Some months ago, we (as NEUROPUBLIC) were invited to contribute to an ambitious effort, an encyclopaedia of olive and olive oil. The effort was coordinated by Mr. Vassilis Zampounis, a person dedicated to olive growing and related research. The final version of the publication covers 700 pages and involves contributions from 37 specialized researchers and other specialists of the agrifood sector. It provides research outcomes, business perspectives and other aspects, in a simplified way, so that it can be easily read and understood by a wide variety of stakeholders.

We are glad to be among the authors of this publication, contributing with a chapter on the importance of smart farming in the case of olives. In this chapter we present existing work regarding the adoption of smart farming in the case of olive groves (e.g. smart irrigation, fertilization and pest control) as well as the potential for further improving olive production in terms of quality and quantity with the application of data-powered services.

The presentation of the publication will take place on November 8, 2017, in the context of GAIA EPICHEIREIN's 4th Panhellenic Congress. You may find more info here & here (Greek only)